Ways to Improve the Supply Chain Management Mechanism of the Firm's Competitiveness

In the era of globalization and internationalization of the economy, competitiveness is one of the main criteria for its effectiveness. Today it is impossible to find a market in which there is no competition, so the problem of competitiveness of the firm is relevant and requires constant research. There are many definitions of the concept of managing a firm's competitiveness. In this article, after analyzing the different approaches, a generalized definition is derived. In unstable market conditions, the success of the firm in the market depends on its competitiveness, timely establishment of strategic goals, flexibility of the production system, which is ensured by the accuracy and timeliness of management decisions.Effective management of the firm in the market conditions is essentially reduced to the management of its competitiveness (to the assessment and analysis of factors that increase or decrease the competitiveness of the firm, the choice and implementation of appropriate strategies and tactics to achieve a particular goal). Since today in the world of high technology it is more difficult for a firm to survive, the firms themselves, which use as many methods of management as possible, will be more interesting for investors, what is the result of the introduction of certain innovations. The purpose of management in this situation is to react to innovations and changes in time. The article highlights a number of key factors affecting the competitiveness of the firm and management decision-making, the management tools of competitiveness management

Nosocomial infections and their control strategies

Nosocomial infections are also known as hospital-acquired/associated infections. National Healthcare Safety Network along with Centers for Disease Control for surveillance has classified nosocomial infection sites into 13 types with 50 infection sites, which are specific on the basis of biological and clinical criteria. The agents that are usually involved in hospital-acquired infections include Streptococcus spp., Acinetobacter spp., enterococci, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, coagulase-negative staphylococci, Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus cereus, Legionella and Enterobacteriaceae family members, namely, Proteus mirablis, Klebsiella pneumonia, Escherichia coli, Serratia marcescens. Nosocomial pathogens can be transmitted through person to person, environment or contaminated water and food, infected individuals, contaminated healthcare personnel's skin or contact via shared items and surfaces. Mainly, multi-drug-resistant nosocomial organisms include methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, vancomycin-resistant enterococci, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Klebsiella pneumonia, whereas Clostridium difficile shows natural resistance. Excessive and improper use of broad-spectrum antibiotics, especially in healthcare settings, is elevating nosocomial infections, which not only becomes a big health care problem but also causes great economic and production loss in the community. Nosocomial infections can be controlled by measuring and comparing the infection rates within healthcare settings and sticking to the best healthcare practices. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides the methodology for surveillance of nosocomial infections along with investigation of major outbreaks. By means of this surveillance, hospitals can devise a strategy comprising of infection control practices

Multi texture analysis of colorectal cancer continuum using multispectral imagery

Purpose This paper proposes to characterize the continuum of colorectal cancer (CRC) using multiple texture features extracted from multispectral optical microscopy images. Three types of pathological tissues (PT) are considered: benign hyperplasia, intraepithelial neoplasia and carcinoma. Materials and Methods In the proposed approach, the region of interest containing PT is first extracted from multispectral images using active contour segmentation. This region is then encoded using texture features based on the Laplacian-of-Gaussian (LoG) filter, discrete wavelets (DW) and gray level co-occurrence matrices (GLCM). To assess the significance of textural differences between PT types, a statistical analysis based on the Kruskal-Wallis test is performed. The usefulness of texture features is then evaluated quantitatively in terms of their ability to predict PT types using various classifier models. Results Preliminary results show significant texture differences between PT types, for all texture features (p-value < 0.01). Individually, GLCM texture features outperform LoG and DW features in terms of PT type prediction. However, a higher performance can be achieved by combining all texture features, resulting in a mean classification accuracy of 98.92%, sensitivity of 98.12%, and specificity of 99.67%. Conclusions These results demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of combining multiple texture features for characterizing the continuum of CRC and discriminating between pathological tissues in multispectral images

Introduction to robotics agriculture in pest control: a review

Agriculture is one of the latest industries that uses robotic technologies. Cultivation of crops with high yield and quality can be enhanced when technological sustenance is involved. Pests are nuisance and cannot be completely eliminated, but with effective control and management. damages caused by pests could be minimized below economic threshold. Automation in agriculture is stable and accurate and is mainly incorporated in mechanized farming system. However its numerous application in different agricultural practices is not well noticed. Hence this paper attempts to provide profound awareness on robotic technology in agriculture. Robots could have a specific or multiple functions and, most commonly, they are made up of five basic components; sensors, effectors, actuators, controller and arms. Use of automation in weeding, weed mapping, micro spraying, seeding, irrigation and harvesting are progressions which promote sustainable agriculture and food security. In future, solar robots with battery inverter may be invented

Effect of deposition time on the characteristics of nanocrystalline cds thin films and photodetection properties

Nanocrystalline CdS thin films were grown on silicon substrates using microwave-assisted chemical bath deposition. Aqueous solutions of cadmium chloride (CdCl2) and thiourea [SC(NH2)2], which served as cadmium Cd2+ and sulfur S2– ions sources, respectively were used to synthesize the nanocrystalline CdS thin films. Morphological, structural, and optical analyses revealed that the deposition time have significantly influenced the properties of the prepared thin films. CdS thin film prepared at a deposition time of 20 min showed the optimum characteristics. The photoluminescence measurements showed enhanced structural quality as suggested by the reduction in the intensity of the defect-related emissions. Prolonging the deposition time beyond 20 min does not improve the properties of the grown thin films. Metal-semiconductor-metal photodetectors were fabricated based on the synthesized CdS thin films. Current–voltage measurements showed superior characteristics of the fabricated photodetectors based on CdS thin films grown at deposition times of 10 and 20 min compared to those based on CdS thin film grown at a deposition time of 30 min. Photodetector based on CdS thin film grown at a deposition time of 20 min exhibited enhanced photodetection properties. The device showed the fastest response time of 9 ms with a photosensitivity of 1440% to 500 nm chopped light at an applied bias of –1 V. Whereas, photodetector based on CdS thin film grown at a deposition time of 30 min showed the longest response and recovery times of 35 and 42 ms, respectively with a photosensitivity of 51.70%. Photodetection measurements revealed that schottky contact based devices have a superior performance than those with ohmic contact-based devices

Synthesis of some novel pyrimidine, thiophene, coumarin, pyridine and pyrrole derivatives and their biological evaluation as analgesic, antipyretic and anti-inflammatory agents

Pyrimidine derivative 3 was afforded through the reaction of compound (1) with 5-ureidohydantion (2). Product 3 underwent a cyclization to produce fused pyrimidine derivative 7, although the latter product 7 was synthesized through one step via the reaction of compound (1) with 5-ureidohydantion (2) using another catalyst. Compound 3 was oriented to react with cyclic ketones 8a,b in the presence of elemental sulfur, salicylaldehyde (10), aryldiazonium chlorides 12a,b and ω-bromo-4-methoxy- acetophenone (14), which afforded, fused thiophene derivatives 9a,b, coumarin derivative 11, arylhdrazono derivatives 13a,b and 4-methoxyphenyl butenyl derivative 15, respectively. The latter product 15 was reacted with either potassium cyanide (16a) or potassium thiocyanide (16b) to form cyano and thiocyano derivatives 17a,b, respectively. Compound 17a underwent further cyclization to afford pyridopyrimidine derivative 19. Compound 15 was reacted with either hydrazine (20a) or phenylhydrazine (20b) to produce hydrazo derivatives 21a,b and these products were cyclize to produce pyrrole derivatives 23a,b. Finally, 5-ureidohydantion (2) was reacted with compounds 24a,b,c to afford pyrimidine derivatives 25a,b,c. The structures of the synthesized compounds were confirmed using IR, 1 H NMR, 13C NMR and mass spectrometry techniques. Compounds 11 and 19 have promising as analgesic and antipyretic activities

Study on turbulent characteristics of flow boiling in a micro gap under the influence of surface roughness and micro fins

Micro gap heat sinks with internal micro fins are potential candidates for evaporative cooling of miniature electronic devices. Generation of turbulence during flow boiling in a micro gap is an important issue in two-phase heat transfer analysis. Surface roughness and fins play important role in turbulence generation. In this paper, effects of micro gap height, surface roughness and fin spacing on turbulence generation during flow boiling of pure water in this particular heat sink have been investigated by numerical simulation. Commercial software FLUENT 14.5 release has been used for simulation purpose. Volume of Fluid (VOF) model along with Renormalization Group Theory (RNG) based k − ε turbulence model has been used for fluid flow and heat transfer modeling. Simulation results demonstrate that turbulent kinetic energy increases in the flow direction due to large pressure drop inside micro gap. As pressure drop decreases with the increment of gap height, turbulent kinetic energy also declines. For the same reason, it has been found that generation of turbulent kinetic energy is lower for larger fin spacing. On the other hand, effect of surface roughness on turbulent kinetic energy is dominated by flow scale. For same Reynolds number, turbulence in larger fluid domains is more sensitive to surface roughness than smaller flow fields

Developing Islamic city through network-of-mosque (NoM)

Learning from the history, our prophet used mosque to provide many activities and served as community centrefor the purpose of society welfare. Today, we can find the mosque everywhere but its function were limited and only used for religious and spiritual purposes. Thus, this conceptual program will develop the Islamic City through Network of Mosque.Network of Mosque can be used to create centre for transformation which can provide the services to the society. These services will include community classes, zakat collection and distribution, halal certification, and eating place for the hungry and needy. This conceptual program introduces to improve the quality of service through strategic partnership between government, industry, and society which will result to raise the entrepreneurs and lead to the prosperity. This program offers Quadruple Helix Model (QHM) which involve the Government, Academia, Industry, and Citizen as the main actor for this program. Nine blocks of Business Model Canvas (BMC) framework and Literature Review used as the methodology for this paper. To achieve its goals, this program collaborates and synergize with the Whole of Government (WoG). The findings of this paper show that the Mosque can facilitate and serve the society better by harnessing Network of Mosque, which guide to the developing Islamic City